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The Savage Land is a hidden prehistoric land within the fictional Marvel Universe. It is a tropical game preserve hidden in Antarctica. It was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in X-Men #10 (March 1965).

History

The Savage Land was created by the alien Nuwali at the behest of the other-dimensional, nigh-omnipotent aliens known as the Beyonders. The Beyonders sought to observe the process of evolution under relatively controlled conditions and had the Nuwali set up a number of game preserves on several planets. One of these planets was Earth during the Triassic period where the Nuwali chose a valley in Antarctica surrounded by active volcanoes, where they installed a number of advanced technological devices in order to maintain a tropical climate. The aliens then stocked the area with all manner of Earth life over the following several millennia. They also brought over the Man-Apes, earlier versions of the "Homo-Sapien." The Beyonders eventually grew bored with the experiment, and the Nuwali stopped maintaining the Savage Land during the late Pleistocene (the Ice Age era). However, the technology that allowed the pocket of tropical climate was left running, and many species which became extinct in other areas of the Earth continued to thrive within.

Later on, a group of human survivors from Atlantis sailed to Antarctica after the "Great Cataclysm" which sunk their continent. There, they discovered a cavern where they found an immense climate-controlling device and harnessed the technology used to keep the Savage Land's volcanoes working. They named their location "Pangea," which is Atlantean for "paradise." They mastered genetic engineering, which had been used on the Man-Apes when the Nuwali was still maintaining the Savage Land area. They used their genetic engineering techniques to transform other Savage Land inhabitants, like the Tubanti Fish People and others, who they then forced to work for them until these animal people revolted. After a time of war, the animal people demanded civil rights and the Atlanteans used technology to expand the Savage Land's surface area for the animal people to live in. When the Great Cataclysm struck, the Atlantean empire fell and thanks to the machines, the Savage Land locations were spared from sinking into the sea.

In more recent years, the Savage Land was rediscovered by Lord Robert Plunder who took back a sample of the metal known as "anti-metal" or "Antarctic Vibranium" with him. This mysterious metal had the ability to produce vibrations which would liquefy all other metals. Fleeing from those who sought to steal this discovery, Plunder took his eldest son Kevin with him for a second trip into the Savage Land. Unfortunately, the elder Plunder was killed by a local tribe of Man-Apes. Kevin survived, thanks to the timely intervention of the widowed sabretooth tiger later known as Zabu. He grew to adulthood in the Savage Land, becoming the adventurer known as Ka-Zar. Ka-Zar had many team-ups with the X-Men, Spider-Man, and any other superhero who had visited the Savage Land. He later met and married Shanna the She-Devil.

At one point, the Savage Land was decimated by an evil alien named Terminus (or one of his pawns) when he destroyed the machines that maintained the tropical climate. Ka-Zar, Shanna, and Zabu wandered until the High Evolutionary restored the region allowing them to return to the Savage Land with their newborn son.

Savage Land races

There are many types of races in the Savage Land and Pangea. Examples of Savage Land races include the bird people called Aerians, the monkey-tailed Tree People, the amphibious Tubanti fish-people of the inland Gorahn Sea, the Lizard Men of Vali-Kuri City, and the nomadic cat people of Pandori. Popular races in the Savage Land are the Man-Apes, the Lemurans, the Pterons (pterodactyl-like people), the Sun People, the Swamp Men, and the Zebra People.

Super-powered inhabitants

A number of superhumans have lived in the Savage Land, notably Sauron, Garrokk and Zaladane, the Savage Land Mutates, Devil Dinosaur and Moonboy, Stegron the Dinosaur Man. The supervillain Magneto has lived there on several occasions when he led the Savage Land Mutates.

This article or section contains information about an upcoming election. It is likely to contain information of a speculative nature and the content about candidates may change dramatically as the election approaches and more information becomes available.

The Missouri Senate election of 2006 will be held on November 7, 2006. Whoever is elected will serve between January 3, 2007 and January 3, 2013.

The incumbent is Republican Jim Talent. Talent was elected in a special election in 2002 when he narrowly defeated incumbent Democrat Jean Carnahan. Carnahan had been appointed to the Senate seat following the posthumous election of her husband Mel Carnahan, who had died in a plane crash shortly before the 2000 election.

Talent, anticipating a tough re-election battle and attempting to dissuade challengers, has already accumulated a large war chest [1]. For most of 2005, he had no opposition. State Senator Chuck Graham had breifly entered the race early in the year, but dropped out soon after. However, on August 30, 2005 Democratic state auditor Claire McCaskill announced her intention to run for Talent's Senate seat. McCaskill starts with a large financial disadvantage, but she is also an experienced candidate with high name recognition. McCaskill has run two successful campaigns for state auditor. She was also a candidate for governor in 2004. She defeated the incumbent Democratic Governor Bob Holden in the primary election but lost with 48% of the vote in the general election.

Contents 1 Candidates 1.1 Democrats 1.2 Republicans 2 Polling

Candidates

Democrats

• Claire McCaskill, two-term state auditor and 2004 Democratic nominee for Governor of Missouri

Republicans

• Jim Talent, incumbent Senator

Polling

Source	Date	McCaskill (D)	Talent (R)	Other	Undecided
Rasmussen	1 September 2005	46	46	2	6
Rasmussen	11 November 2005	47	45	2	6

Preceded by: 2004

Missouri U.S. Senate elections 2006

Followed by: 2008

The Thinker, bronze cast by Alexis Rudier, Laeken Cemetery, Brussels, Belgium

The Thinker (French: Le Penseur) is one of Auguste Rodin's famous bronze sculptures. It depicts a man in sober meditation battling with a powerful internal struggle.

Originally named The Poet, the piece was part of a commission by the Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris to create a monumental portal based on The Divine Comedy of Dante. Each of the statues in the piece represented one of the main characters in the epic poem. The Thinker was originally meant to depict Dante in front of the Gates of Hell, pondering his great poem. The sculpture is naked as Rodin wanted a heroic figure à la Michelangelo to represent thinking as well as poetry.

Rodin made a first small plaster version around 1880.

The first large-scale bronze cast was was finished in 1902, but was not presented to the public until 1904. It became the property of the city of Paris thanks to a subscription organised by Rodin admirers and was put in front of the Panthéon in 1906. In 1922, however, it was moved to the Hôtel Biron, transformed into a Rodin Museum.

Over twenty casts of the sculpture are in museums around the world. Some of these copies are enlarged versions of the original work, as well as, sculptures of different proportions.

See also

• The Gates of Hell

External link

• The Thinker project, Munich. Discussion of the history of the many casts of this artwork.

Trousers (or "pants" in North American English, sometimes "slacks" in more formal or older-fashioned usage) are an item of clothing worn on the lower part of the body and covering both legs separately (rather than with cloth stretching across both as in skirts and dresses). Historically, as for the West, trousers were the standard lower-body clothing item for males since the 16th century; by the late 20th century they had become extremely prevalent for females as well. Trousers are worn at the hips or waist, and may be held up by their own fastenings, a belt, or suspenders (braces). Leggings are form-fitting trousers of a clingy material, often knitted cotton and lycra.

Contents 1 Terminology 2 Characteristics 3 History 3.1 Men's trousers 3.2 Women's trousers 4 Society 5 Law 6 See also

Terminology

In North American English, pants is the general category term, and trousers refers, often more formally, specifically to tailored garments with a waistband and (typically) belt-loops and a fly-front. For instance, informal elastic-waist knitted garments would never be called trousers in America.

In British English, trousers is the general category term, and pants refers to underwear (in America, called underwear, underpants or panties to distinguish them from other pants, worn on the outside).

Characteristics

• Length: Trousers can cover the body from the waist all the way down to the top of the foot, or stop almost anywhere from the upper thigh to the ankle. Short trousers, or just shorts, stop anywhere from the upper thigh to the knee. Capris are women's trousers that end mid-calf or just below the calf. Children who have grown such that the trouser legs are not long enough, are derisively said to be wearing "floods" or "highwaters" (a reference to hiked trousers to keep them dry in flood times); in the UK they are said to be 'wearing their trousers at half-mast' (just as you might fly a flag at half-mast), or simply wearing "half-masts".
  • Some trousers have detachable legs, usually with zippers
• Pockets: There may be front pockets (usually inset) and back pockets (usually patch). Men's trousers almost always have back pockets. Some trousers, especially jeans, have a smaller fifth pocket inside the right front pocket. This is sometimes called the "coin pocket" but may be used for other things or not at all.

Men's pleated slacks (left) and "English drape" trousers (right), 1937, both with fly-front and cuffs

• Turn-ups or cuffs (the bottom of the trouser leg folded up) may or may not be present
• Pleats: vertical folds in the front for a looser fit
• Waist band: may be elasticized
• Fly: This allows easier dressing and, for men, urination without undressing. The fly may further be distinguished by the closure mechanism: zipper or buttons. There may not be a fly. Trousers wide enough to put on and taking off without having a fly or opening at the side, have either an elastic or drawstring waist or are kept in place with a belt or suspenders.
• Leg shape: The trouser legs may be straight, or tapered to be snug around the ankles. The bottom may be flared, in which case the trousers can be called "bell-bottoms" (or flares in the UK). Breeches (commonly worn for horse riding) are either loose-fitting and then gathered together just below the knees, or formed and then gathered just below the knees (similar to pantaloons), below which they are snug and form fitting down to the ankles.
• Beltloops: These may or may not be present to support a belt which may be used to adjust the tightness in the waist, and for decoration. Men can use suspenders (called braces in British English) to support trousers that are loose in the waist.

Blue Jeans

History

Trousers were introduced into Western European culture at several points in history, but gained their current predominance only in the 16th century.

Nomadic Eurasian horsemen/women such as the Scythians, along with Seleucid Persians were the first to wear trousers, later introduced to modern Europe via either the Hungarians or Ottoman Turks. However, the Celts also seem to have worn them in Ancient Europe.

Men's trousers

Trousers also trace their ancestry to the individual hose worn by men in the 15th century (which is why trousers are plural and not singular). The hose were easy to make and fastened to a doublet at the top with ties called "points", but as time went by, the two hose were joined, first in the back then across the front, but still leaving a large opening for sanitary functions. Originally, doublets came almost to the knees, effectively covering the genitalia, but as fashions changed and doublets became shorter, it became necessary (and required by the church) for men to cover their genitals with a codpiece.

By the end of the 16th century, the codpiece had been incorporated into the hose, now usually called breeches, which were roughly knee-length and featured a fly or fall front opening.

During the French Revolution, the male citizens of France adopted a working-class costume including ankle-length trousers or pantaloons in place of the aristocratic knee-breeches. This style was introduced to England in the early 19th century, possibly by Beau Brummell, and supplanted breeches as fashionable street wear by mid-century. Breeches survived into the 1930s as the plus-fours or knickers worn for active sports and by young school-boys.

Sailors may have played a role in the dissemination of trousers as a fashion around the world. In the 17th and 18th centuries, sailors wore a baggy trouser known as a galligaskin. Sailors were also the first to wear jeans -- trousers made of denim. These became more popular in the late 19th century in the American West, because of their ruggedness and durability.

Women's trousers

Wigan pit brow girl.Katharine Hepburn

Although trousers for women did not become fashion items until the later 20th century, women began wearing men's trousers (suitably altered) for outdoor work a hundred years earlier.

The Wigan pit brow girls scandalized Victorian society by wearing trousers for their dangerous work in the coal mines. They wore skirts over their trousers, rolled up to the waist to keep them out of the way.

Women working the ranches of the 19th century American West also wore trousers for riding, and in the early 20th century aviatrixes and other working women often wore trousers. Actresses Marlene Dietrich and Katharine Hepburn were often photographed in trousers from the 1930s and helped make trousers acceptable for women. During World War II, women working in factories and doing other forms of "men's work" on war service wore trousers when the work demanded it, and in the post-war era trousers became acceptable casual wear for gardening, the beach, and other leisure pursuits.

In the 1960s, André Courrèges introduced long trousers for women as a fashion item, leading to the era of the pantsuit and designer jeans and the gradual eroding of the prohibitions against girls and women wearing trousers in schools, the workplace, and fine restaurants.

Society

It is customary in the Western world for men to wear trousers and not skirts or dresses. However, there are exceptions, such as the Scottish kilt and the Greek tsolias, worn on ceremonial occasions, as well as robes or robe-like clothing such as the cassocks, etc. of clergy and academic robes (both rarely worn in daily use today).

Based on Deuteronomy 22:5 in the Bible, some Christian adherents believe that women should not wear trousers, but only skirts and dresses.

Among certain groups, saggy, baggy trousers exposing underwear are in fashion, e.g. among skaters, for whom it also provides more freedom of movement.

Cut-offs are homemade shorts made by cutting the legs off trousers, usually after holes have been worn in fabric around the knees. This extends the useful life of the trousers. The remaining leg fabric may or may not be hemmed after being cut.

Law

Image:Pants.jpginformal trousers

In May 2004 in Louisiana, Congressman Dick Shepard proposed a bill that would make it a crime to appear in public wearing trousers below the waist and thereby exposing one's skin or "intimate clothing". ([1], PDF). The Louisiana bill was retracted after negative public reaction.

In February 2005, Virginia legislators tried to pass a similar law that would have made punishable by a $50 fine: "any person who, while in a public place, intentionally wears and displays his below-waist undergarments, intended to cover a person's intimate parts, in a lewd or indecent manner".

It is not clear whether, with the same coverage by the trousers, exposing underwear was considered worse than exposing bare skin, or that the latter was already covered by another law.

It passed in the Virginia House of Delegates. However, various criticisms to it arose. For example, newspaper columnists and radio talk show hosts consistently said that since most people that would be penalized under the law would be young African-American men, the law would thus be a form of discrimination against them. Virginia's state senators voted against passing the law. [2], [3].

See also

• Breeches
• Beach shorts
• Codpiece
• Hakama
• Jeans
• Knickers
• Leggings
• Pantaloons
• Georgepants
• Thai fisherman pants
• Cross-dresser
• No Pants Day
• Pant